Don’t worry. I’m not quitting my day job. But there’s just something about the simplicity of homemade marinara sauce that inspires my inner poet.

While I’m all for tomato sauces that have to simmer longer than my latest House Hunters marathon (cough … 6 hours… cough), sometimes, 10 minutes is all we’ve got. And thus, this easy four-ingredient homemade marinara is the answer to all of your pizza, pasta and garlic bread dipping sauce dilemmas.

Directions:

Heat a medium saucepan over medium-low heat. Add the olive oil to the pan, allowing it to warm for 1 minute, then add the garlic and sauté it for 2 minutes, stirring constantly, until it's golden brown and fragrant.

Add the crushed tomatoes, salt, pepper, sugar and crushed red pepper flakes (optional), stirring to combine. Simmer the sauce for 7 minutes, stirring occasionally, then season it with additional salt, pepper or sugar, to taste.

Kelly's Notes:

The strongest flavor of the marinara sauce will depend on what variety of crushed tomatoes you use. My preferred brand is San Marzano Crushed Tomatoes.

This recipe can serve as the starting point for many other sauce variations. Feel free to add fresh basil, sautéed onions and any other preferred add-ins.

Recipe by Kelly Senyei of Just a Taste. Please do not reprint this recipe without my permission. If you'd like to feature this recipe on your site, please rewrite the method of preparation and link to this post as the original source.

Hi! I made homemade marinara sauce for the first time a month or so back and it was like a revelation … I couldn’t believe that I hadn’t made it before. Mine was 20-minute though so I’d be interested to try this quicker version. :-)

Being unable to digest onions, peppers and sensitive to garlic, I immediately move on when they are in a recipe. I am beginning to use powder instead, as there is nothing to digest…but, this has NO ONIONS, happy day!!! Thank you so much, Kelly…just what I need for my Dreamfield’s (to cut carbs).

Hi Kelly, I just made this last night to serve with mozzarella sticks and it was so good! It was so easy and delicious and I will be using it for everything from now on. Thanks for the great recipe, I love your website.

I just made this tonight and it’s DELISH!!! Perfect blending of flavors in just the basic recipe – and I didn’t even add onions or more garlic powder. We find that the bottled pasta sauces have too much salt in them and we can’t eat them. So, I got Pomi crushed tomatoes, which have only 30 mg in the whole thing, and added a dash of salt to this. Perfect!! Now we can have pasta sauce again – thank you so much for this recipe!